STEM PUNKS - Best Education Platform for PK-20

Company: STEM PUNKS
Entry Submitted By: The Audacious Agency
Company Description: STEMeducation is key for tomorrow's innovators. Through ourSTEMeducation program we enable a fun and exciting learning environment for kids.
Nomination Category: Product & Service Categories - Education & Education Technology Solutions
Nomination Sub Category: Education Platform for PK-20

Nomination Title: STEM PUNKS: TAKING STEM EDUCATON GLOBAL

If this is a brand-new product, state the date on which it was released. If this is a new version of an existing product, state the date on which the update was released:

STEM Punks’ mission is to “Inspire Tomorrow’s Innovators” and teach kids 21st Century skills by enabling a mindset of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. After researching trends in overseas education, we realised there was a gap in the market in Australia for quality STEM education for children. When we started, STEM wasn’t part of the national curriculum, so we were ahead of the trend. Our first programs were small after-school classes in our garage. We saw the need in the market for quality STEM education for children, providing them with learning outcomes aligned to the national curriculum, not just for entertainment value. What started out as market testing with the local community had such a rapid uptake from parents and teachers, the business scaled up nationally.

Since COVID the need for quality, online STEM education is global, we moved our in-person programs to online because our normal delivery was not feasible. COVID gave us the perfect opportunity to transform the business; changing our business model from a face-to-face delivery model to an online model. Tapping into our innovative, creative juices, we created more ways to deliver lessons - fully embracing digital transformation. A game changing process, opening up new growth opportunities in Australia and overseas. Securing a Queensland Government grant, we invested in building a studio to build production value into an online learning platform and launched STEM Punks online globally.

If there is one thing we learnt from COVID, it was how to utilize the power of leverage. As a small business, family owned and run, with only five full time employees in Australia and one in Austin, Texas, we have accomplished big things over the past two years. We’ve created educational programs that are highly scalable and can secure large contracts by leveraging our digital capitalism; it makes us incredibly agile, delivering great programs at a low cost.

After losing eight months of income in early 2020, we fully embraced the opportunity to refashion our business for the future and for the big goal of making STEM accessible to more children globally.

With the program pillars backed by curriculum and skilled teachers, she celebrated some incredible thought leadership achievements:

-Signed a two year deal with Lockheed Martin to roll out a national/international program to fill the skills gap they've identified in the school system. After reviewing the skills Lockheed Martin required to grow their business, they partnered with STEM Punks to create an industry linked program to fill the education gaps for their future employees.
-In discussions with Dell and Emerson to develop industry-linked programs for their industries. STEM Punks digital storytelling abilities, finessed and honed during COVID, created high quality educational content in the style of Mythbusters, which has been instrumental in securing these important partnerships.
-creation of content for STEM Punks TV platform, similar in style to Netflix, is produced in-house at the studio built during COVID. Ten episodes of STEM Punks Explorer, providing industry links for primary schools and are delivered freely, have been produced.
-launched a new initiative - Innovation Sports - an internal competition which encourages students to solve problems in a competitive way. We’re currently seeking corporate sponsors and trialling it with 10 of our partner schools across Australia.
-online web app, and iOS and Android Apps will be available July. It’ll be a subscription model, and one that will make parents feel good about giving their children an app.
-online programs extended into libraries, including a partnership with a New York library.

On a business note, we grew by 30% since 19/20 despite COVID; 2020 was above what we projected despite losing 8 months of revenue.

Engagement numbers 2019:

Teachers: 3,000+
School Students: 10,000+
eLearning STEM Education Platform for schools: 1,000+
International students (China, Japan, UAE, Vietnam, Hong Kong): 500+
TV Media Channel 10 Scope (10 episodes): 26,000 students per episode, ~ 260,000 in 2019

Expansion in 2020:
eLearning STEM Education Platform for home market
Expansion to US market with STEM products and eLearning content
Partnership with Navitas Education - Programs for students in Australia and overseas
Partnership with Federation University - Programs for students in Australia and overseas

Customer feedback - reviews on Facebook. Please see support document, showcasing customer testimonials and case studies of work we have done, especailly with ourt nnew global collaboration formed between the not-for-profit LING Project (Literacy In Northern Ghana) in Ghana to build literacy for females in the region, and help schools and communities access tools, training, and support. We hope to link this program with Innovation Sports with other children across the world; truly showing how we can bring STEM to everyone, everywhere and enable equality and equity in STEM education. https://www.facebook.com/stempunksau/reviews/?ref=page_internal

We recently completed a two-year survey, gathering data from a school we’ve worked with over this time. We wanted to see the impact of our programs and the ripple effect on students’ choices when it came to selecting STEM as a career path. The data showed 48% of students we engaged with saw STEM as a career path, an increase of 45% from 2018, when the school had no STEM programs. What was exciting is the 69% of students love our online classes and 86% saw how they could apply the skills they learnt into real world applications. Programs are evaluated based on how many students are engaged in the lessons, the knowledge they’ve acquired based on the complexity of completed projects, the diversity of students, and student return rates. Into 2021, we will formalize program surveys and create micro-credentials for students to take to high schools, universities, or potential employers.

Our support document shows:
- Our background and purpose
- Case studies
- Media coverage
- Outline of programs
- Community service work
- Links
- 2022 goals